Two iPhone apps I’m digging

There are two iPhone apps on my second screen (my test screen) that I played with over the weekend – Highlight and CardMunch.

Highlight has been getting a lot of buzz over the past week, touted as SXSW’s “Breakout Star”. I wasn’t able to attend SXSW, but I heard a lot of people were loving this app. Essentially Highlight lets you find out about the people near you. Here’s what they say on their website:

If someone standing near you also has Highlight, their profile will show up on your phone. You can see their name, photos of them, mutual friends, and anything else they have chosen to share. When you meet someone, Highlight helps you see what you have in common with them. And when you forget their name at a party a week later, Highlight can help you remember it.

I tried it out recently and it was very cool. It showed me that I was near a guy who was a friend of a friend, and told me a little about him and the things we had in common (presumably pulling from our Facebook likes). At a conference or when traveling, I could see this being a very useful app. I must confess, however, after I tested it out I quickly changed my setting to “pause” as I didn’t really want a bunch of people knowing I was near them and knowing all about me. That aspect is a little creepy.

The second app, CardMunch, is LinkedIn’s app that allows you to take a picture of a business card and it will give you the person’s contact info and LinkedIn history, complete with a button to connect with them on LinkedIn and the ability to download that card to your phone’s address book. It seems to take a little while for the card to be processed (someone told me they actually have humans doing this), but when it does come back its a very useful tool. I’ve been snapping pictures of business cards and throwing them away when I get them.

This app probably has a limited lifeline as I would imagine soon our phones will allow us to easily beam our contact info to and from other phones via something like NFC. But until then, its going to come in handy for me.

My second screen - the apps I'm testing

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